books.google.com - The Evolution of Surgical Instruments is the first comprehensive work on the subject published in over sixty years and arguably the most important general history of surgical instruments ever published. The only prior work on the subject, C. J. S. Thompson's The History and Evolution of Surgical Instruments...http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Evolution_of_Surgical_Instruments.html?id=eg_SpXBf4eIC&utm_source=gb-gplus-shareThe Evolution of Surgical Instruments

The Evolution of Surgical Instruments: An Illustrated History from Ancient Times to the Twentieth Century

The Evolution of Surgical Instruments is the first comprehensive work on the subject published in over sixty years and arguably the most important general history of surgical instruments ever published. The only prior work on the subject, C. J. S. Thompson's The History and Evolution of Surgical Instruments (1942) attempted to cover the entire history in only 113 pages. Elisabeth Bennion's Antique Medical Instruments (1979) concentrated chiefly upon the aesthetic aspects of medical and surgical instruments to 1870. James Edmonson's comprehensive history, American Surgical Instruments (1997), focused on instruments manufactured in the United States up to 1900.

About the author (2006)

John Kirkup, MD, MA, FRCS, Dip Hist Med studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and St Marya (TM)s Hospital, London, qualifying in 1952. After service in the Royal Navy he worked as an orthopedic surgeon for the Bath Clinical Area, Somerset, introducing ankle joint replacement to the United Kingdom in 1976.

Always intrigued by the evolution of surgery from its pre-historic roots, Mr Kirkup edited facsimiles of Wisemana (TM)s Of Wounds (1676) and Woodalla (TM)s Surgions Mate (1617), published A Historical Guide to British Orthopaedic Surgery, and contributed chapters in books on Ambroise ParA(c), on pain management during surgery, on trepanation, on the battle against infection, on damaged surgeona (TM)s equipment of the Mary Rose shipwreck and on instrumentation generally. He published a wide variety of journal communications including and extended series on surgical instruments and on the history of foot and ankle surgery, and twelve surgical entries in the New Dictionary of National Biography. He has been Hunterian, Vicary, Sydenham and Hamilton Russell Lecturer, was awarded the Sir Arthur Keith Medal of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and has advised widely on museum collections, especially in the UK, Portugal and Australia.

Formerly President of the British Society for Medical History, President of the History Section of the Royal Society of Medicine, Honorary Archivist of the British Orthopaedic Association and Chairman of the Historical Medical Equipment Society, Mr Kirkup is currently Honorary Curator of the Historical Instrument Collection at the Royal College of Surgeons, London, and Lecture in Surgical History to the Society of Apothecaries, London. He isalso about to publish a book on the evolution of surgical instruments.